Stray Leaves from a Border Garden 
sophy of Pleasure,” is said to be rather in the style of 
Ruskin. He writes, “ It tends to edify the heart if we 
plant trees and herbs in our gardens and love them.” I 
quote this from an interesting book on the History of 
Japanese Literature by a Dr. Aston, sometime attached 
to the British Legation in Japan. How lucky it is for 
vegetables such as I, who cannot leave their little home- 
patch, that there:be folk, butterflies, and bees, and suchlike, 
able and willing to bring to the homebound, histories of 
the doings of similar earth-held ones elsewhere ! The Bees 
in the old pottage-garden have been very busy all this 
sunny weather. There is a good deal of Bee-keeping about 
here and very good honey to be got. The Bees all depart 
to the hills when the heather is in bloom, cartloads of 
Bees journeying to the moors, summer’s pilgrims, to bide 
awhile under care of some Shepherd in his lonely shiel- 
ing, that the honey may acquire the esteemed heather 
flavour. Reaumur describes the Egyptian Bees travelling 
from Lower to Upper Egypt when the pink Sainfoin is in 
flower, journeying in boats on which the hives are high 
heaped in pyramids. Among the many enemies of Bees, 
they have here especially Tit-mice and Sparrows, who watch 
by the hive-door and often seize them coming in or out; 
indeed, I am told the wily birds actually tap on the door to 
entice the Bees out ! Mice, too, are very fond of eating 
Bees. There are many strange stories about Bees, and I 
heard the other day a most curious one about a Snail who 
went into a hive, and as the Bees could not get rid of him, 
they actually plastered him up in his shell and made a sort 
of monument of him inside the hive ! I never look at a 
hive snugly ensconced under a sunny espaliered wall with- 
out thinking of my “ aieule’s ” quaint “ devise,” the little 
Beehive with the motto, Un asile et des fleurs. Poor 
Lady Edward ! I am glad to think that in her sorrow- 
fraught wandering life there were spells of rest and peace 
when this her prayer was granted. Bees are said never to 
touch the sweet clear drops in the Crown Imperial flower, 
